Phantom Limb Syndrome
by tell them i hate them
Summary: Castiel falls, and is reborn.


Phantom Limb Syndrome

He knows enough to keep the memories to himself. His mom, his open-minded and patient and tolerant mom, would be worried if he said these things to her. _He's_ worried. How do you have memories of things that have never happened to you? He must be crazy.

He must be crazy. He knows this. But he can't shake the certainty, the fact that these memories feel so natural. As sure as he remembers almost drowning in the ocean when he was a kid, remembers going to the animal shelter and picking out Remy - their black lab-German shepherd mix - for his eleventh birthday, he remembers Heaven. He remembers music, remembers words about _love_ and _reverence_ and _Father_. He remembers a man he has never seen before, who shouted and swore at him but who loved him, deeply and terribly.

He must be crazy. But he goes to the library and checks out all the books the catalog lists under keyword: reincarnation. He takes them to the study tables, because it's hot outside and the air conditioning in the library is cold enough to make him shiver every now and then and he doesn't want to get back on his bike just yet.

All he gets is a bunch of stuff about Indian spirituality. Not much help, because it doesn't tell him much about why he's having all these memories he shouldn't have, but it's pretty interesting anyway. He brings one to the beach the next day while he's walking Remy. They lie down on the big beach towel he's brought, underneath the wide umbrella, Remy stretched out next to him. The heat presses down on him, radiating in waves off the sand around him, and he falls asleep, breathing in the salt and light. And he dreams.

* * *

It's the not knowing that's hardest.

Twenty years pass and that pain never leaves him. It dulled some, but there's not a day goes by that he doesn't feel it. Like something was ripped out of him. Like phantom limb syndrome.

Not knowing. Not knowing if Cas is okay, if he just went back to Heaven and could never find his way back. If he never wanted to leave again. If they welcomed him back or if they're still punishing him. If they killed him. No word at all comes, and whoever said no news is good news was obviously an idiot.

* * *

He is still flat on his back, the book he was reading lying open on his bare chest. There he is again. That man he remembers. Worrying for almost twenty years.

He is nineteen.

He sits up, shaking his head. The sun is setting, the sky a bright orange, reflecting off the water so that the horizon is just that sad, burning color. He blinks a few times, his eyes stinging with sleep and exhaustion from the heat. Something's wrong. He frowns as he shakes his towel free of sand, puts it back in his bag along with his book. As he starts to fold up the umbrella, he looks around for Remy, pursing his lips to whistle for her.

Something wrong. Remy is gone.

He drops the umbrella to the sand, where it lands next to his bag. He's off running, calling for Remy, his eyes straining in the fading light, looking for his dog. "Remy!" he shouts. People are looking at him nervously, but he guesses he would too if he were watching someone running and shouting like he is now, like his life depended on it.

He slows to a walk, and starts to think of all the places Remy could be. How long ago did she wander off? Oh god, _how_ could he be so _stupid_? He keeps calling, trying to ignore the certainty filling him as the blocks pass by that he's not going to find her. He must have gone at least a mile by now.

The streetlights on the boardwalk come on, and he sees a dark shape moving in the distance, but it's probably just his eyes adjusting to the light. He keeps walking, though, thinking he should maybe turn around and start looking in the other direction. The dark shape is still coming toward him. "Remy?" he finds himself calling again, as if the dog could answer. But it _is_ Remy, jogging toward him with a kind of awkward gait. Getting old. He crouches down, pats his knee, and Remy jumps up, paws on his knees, all wagging tail and lolling tongue. "You can't scare me like that, girl," he says.

There is someone jogging up toward them. "Hey," he calls, "that your dog?"

"Yeah."

"She wandered up to me about an hour ago. I've been waiting with her, trying to find who she belongs to." The guy is tall, long and lean and tan, dark hair and a smooth, hard-muscled body.

He swallows. "Thanks." He's still a little out-of-breath. "I was thinking I wouldn't find her."

"She's a good dog. What's her name?"

"Remy."

"Well. I'm Alex."

"Lucian. Call me Luke." He wraps Remy's leash around his wrist, at a loss for what to say except "Thanks. For looking out for her. She's getting old, and if you hadn't--"

"Don't mention it."

So Luke shuts up, and now a lull has truly entered the conversation, making him feel stupider every minute.

"Listen," Alex says, "I've got some drinks at my place. You wanna come over?"

* * *

They're still in Alex's bed, the morning sun shining in their eyes through the windows, when Alex asks for his number. Luke gets his bag from the floor, looking for his notebook and a pen. "I don't have a cell phone," Alex says, "or a regular phone. But there's always pay phones, and you know where I live now. You can come over whenever."

"Alright," Luke says. He uses his book to brace his notebook against while he writes down his number. He tears the page out and folds it, leaving it on Alex's nightstand.

As he does, Alex takes the book from his hands, giving Luke a look that seems to say, _Is this okay?_ Luke nods, and as Alex opens the book, he asks, "Why reincarnation? I mean, why are you interested in it?"

Luke looks down at his hands. He could tell him the truth. He hates to lie, but especially to people he likes.

"You know," Alex says. "I've had memories from past lives." Luke looks over at him. "Vivid ones."

Luke has to catch his breath, he's so caught off-guard by what Alex is telling him. "About . . . what? What do you remember?"

Alex remembers empires and religion, floods and fire and blue blue eyes. "I know it sounds crazy."

"No," Luke says.

"Do you remember anything? Is that why--" Alex holds up the book, the one about reincarnation.

"I . . . I think so." He pauses. "I'm not sure. All I can remember is . . . loving someone. Fighting with him. He was so angry at me all the time, but - he loved me." Alex puts his arm around Luke's shoulder, sighs. "It doesn't seem like it was that long ago. I've been thinking. About finding him." His hands fold around each other, ill at ease. "_That_ sounds crazy."

"No," Alex says, shaking his head. "Do you know his name?"

"Just his first name. Dean."

* * *

In the morning, after he has gone back to his own apartment, Luke sits on the counter in his kitchen, toying with a pill bottle, empty. Its typed label reads, in severe black all caps, the name of the medicine - which Luke has never been able to pronounce - followed by the instructions "TAKE TWO TABLETS UP TO TWICE DAILY AS NEEDED FOR ANXIETY." It's a week and a half past its refill date. He doesn't have the money to get it refilled.

Soon he starts having the dreams about him. Dreams about _his_ dreams, just observing them. He's restless, even in sleep, and that worries Luke. They're not always bad dreams, but the bad ones are bad enough that Luke wonders how he gets any rest at all.

Tonight it's calm, though. He is drinking tequila, taking shots, in a bar where he is the only customer. Where he's the only _person_, although Luke can hear, blending with the sounds of the ocean outside as if they were coming from the same source, the sound of women's laughter, cheerful and inviting. Dean bites the lime, grimacing with its sourness, and then swallows the tequila, the golden liquid making his throat work. The sound of the ocean makes Luke wonder where they are, if this is a real place from Dean's memory or whether it's something all his own.

He doesn't realize he is here, too, until Dean looks at him, looks right at him. His lips part and a look is in his eyes that Luke can't read as anything but desire. Loss. A long moment passes between them, and Dean finally says, "Cas." The sound comes from some place low in his chest, his voice already on the edge of breaking.

Luke looks down at his hands, is surprised to see that they aren't his, the skin kind of pale. He frowns, and wonders what his face looks like. "Dean."

"I thought you were - I don't know what I thought. What happened to you?"

"I ..." Luke doesn't know, and doesn't know how to to tell him he doesn't know. Doesn't know how to tell him that somehow he has to find him, because once they're together there's no way he could avoid remembering. At least that's what that voice keeps telling him. The one that's urging him to look. For Dean.

"Cas? Is everything okay? Did you fall?"

"I did." The words have left his lips before he even recognizes them, and the significance of the word _fall is lost on him, but he _feels_ it. Whatever it means, he _fell_. Dean leans forward, his head in his hands. A terrible sound leaving him. Despair. Fear. When Luke sees him, sees how the hope - the _faith/, although the faith in what, exactly, Luke isn't sure - has left Dean, he suddenly knows what to say. "It's all right. You won't recognize me, but I'll find you."

"South Dakota," is the last thing Dean says before Luke wakes up.

* * *

South Dakota. What's in South Dakota?

His dreams now are a complicated network of long stretches of road, truck stops, diners, yield signs. Every inch of it vital but completely without context.

One day the smell of engine grease won't leave his nostrils. Alex's head is in his lap, and he feels sick. He hasn't told Alex about the dreams, the really vivid ones. The ones that tell him to look in South Dakota. The ones that feel like memories of a road trip. The ones that tell him to get out of bed, that leave him itching to drive and drive and drive, until he finds Dean.

Tonight he does tell him, and he sees the hurt in Alex's eyes, the hurt that he knew would be there. Of course it would be there. How do you tell someone without it hurting that you're dumping them for someone who could be imaginary? _Casualties_, Luke thinks as Alex walks out the door.

* * *

It's been months since he's taken his meds, and sometimes it's hard to even leave the house to go to work but the memories are sharper and clearer than he'd thought possible. Words like 'salvage' and 'singer' nag at him. He hears dogs barking. Sometimes there are voices that won't go away, sometimes just whispering and sometimes louder, but either way it leaves him a mess. Leaves him curled up in his bed, shutting his eyes against the onslaught.

He decides to pack his car and his dog when he hears on a news broadcast the name of a state representative - James Winchester - that hammers into his brain, over and over, _winchesterwinchesterwinchester**deanwinchester**_, giving him an awful headache that pounds with the rhythm of that name.

He's crazy to think that he's seeing the same stretches of road in front of him that he's dreamed about. It all looks the same. But all of this is crazy. Craziest of all is that he's listening to the voice urging him forward.

* * *

Dean doesn't bother with an alarm clock - hasn't had to for years - because the dogs wake him at 6:30 every morning anyway. He fills their bowls with kibble and steps outside, the cold morning air biting as he breathes in. The dogs follow him outside and all but lunge when he sets their bowls down on the porch, and for a while the only sound is the birds singing and the dogs scarfing down their food. His joints creak and pop with every move he makes, causing him to wince as he sits on the steps, bracing his elbows against his knees. On the bad days the pain causes him to gasp, it's so sharp. As long as he's working, it's not so bad. It's when he's sitting still that it starts to become unbearable.

He's heating up some coffee from yesterday when the dogs start up again. He frowns and looks out the kitchen window at a tan car coming down the drive. He puts the mug he's holding down on the counter, next to the coffee pot, and goes back out onto the porch. His gun is in its holster at his hip, in case there's any trouble. Although honestly he couldn't imagine much trouble coming out of a Toyota Camry.

The dogs start going nuts when the car door opens, and Dean yells, "Shut it!" They quiet down, but he can still hear them growling. But that's their job - junkyard dogs - so Dean lets it slide. "Can I help you?" he calls to the person stepping out of the car.

The man - more like a kid, can't be much older than eighteen - stops and squints at him, like he's having trouble seeing in the morning light. He doesn't say anything, just keeps coming forward, walking right toward Dean. He stops at the front of the steps, and suddenly the dogs are totally calm. "Um, I ..."

"Do I know you?" Dean asks, suspicion obvious in his voice. He knows he has never seen this kid in his life, but their eyes meet and Dean is suddenly not so sure. Something familiar in those deep brown eyes, something that's not there in his face, his tanned and freckled skin, his thin but solid body that Dean knows he has never seen before.

_You won't recognize me. But I'll find you._

His frown deepens. What the hell is happening? "Who are you?" he demands.

The kid swallows. "My name is Luke."

"And?"

"I think I do know you."

"Well I guess weirder things have happened. You wanna come in?" He doesn't wait for an answer, just wrenches the screen door open and waits for Luke to follow him. "Sit." He points at the kitchen table and gets another mug from the cabinet. "Coffee's warmed over, but it's better than nothing." He puts one mug down in front of Luke, coffee plus a few drops of holy water added from a flask on the counter, and sits down across from him. "Now you gotta start talking, 'cause I'm having some trouble comin' up with reasons to not let you get better acquainted with my dogs."

Luke's brows knit together. "Look," Dean adds, "just be honest. Are you selling something or what?"

"No."

"Alright. So you say you know me. How? I've never seen you before in my life," Dean says, still trying to shake the feeling that this is not exactly true, the feeling that comes from looking into Luke's eyes, deep brown and sad and desperate. Reminds him of . . . He draws in a sharp breath, looks harder. Reminds him of Castiel, in a cruel way.

It takes Luke a long time to finally say, "I've had dreams about you." His tone suggests that he knows how absurd it sounds, but in his eyes is a steadfastness that's visible, and there's another reminder.

He's had dreams. Dean finds himself sighing, maybe out of relief, maybe out of something else. "So you're a psychic?"

Luke blinks, and it's obvious he hadn't considered that possibility. "I don't think so," he replies, shaking his head.

"Do you have dreams about other people?"

"No. Just you."

"Are they warnings? Bad things happening to me?"

"No." Luke hesitates. "They're just you being . . . you, I guess."

Something inside Dean gives. He's had dreams lately, too, dreams about Cas, dreams that stopped ten years ago that he thought he was rid of. Dreams that have given him the idea that Cas has _fallen_, which would mean he's back on Earth. Dreams where he's just being himself, different from all the other dreams of hell and the Apocalypse and every other monster that came knocking.

"You need to leave," he says. Something's not right here, and it's not that this is Cas. This is not Cas. If Cas did fall, what are the odds that out of seven billion people on Earth, this one right in front of him is Cas? His luck hasn't been that good in twenty years, and the times that it was that good, it went pretty sour soon after.

"What?"

"Go. Now."

"Why." Luke's voice has flattened, turning questions into statements.

"Because if I see you at my table, in my house, on my property for one more second you are not gonna like the result."

"You don't understand." The kid isn't moving, not an inch, not a flicker of fear in his eyes. Completely unafraid, in a way that makes Dean's breath catch. "I _know_ you, Dean, when I shouldn't. I knew your name, where to find you, what you look like, weeks ago."

"All of that in your dreams."

"_Yes._ In a dream. You _told_ me you were here."

_You won't recognize me. But I'll find you._

"This . . . just go. Just go. Come back tomorrow."

"What does it mean to fall?" The question comes as Dean's back is turned to him, several moments of tense silence passing between them. Dean can feel the weight he places on the word _fall_. His breath catches again. He turns, sees Luke, still sitting at the table, hands wrapped around the mug Dean gave him. His eyes are locked on Dean, his head tilted downward, looking up through thick lashes.

Dean has to turn his back again. "Come back tomorrow. Just go."

* * *

Luke finds a rest stop where he can sleep for the night. Really, what's the point in getting a motel room? The way it's looking, he's going to need the money for gas to get back to Santa Barbara.

He takes Remy for a walk, trembling a little in the chill air; the hoodie he brought with him isn't nearly enough to keep the cold out. She takes one look at the food he offers her, Purina One in a plastic bowl, and turns her head away. She looks up at him plaintively, doesn't take her eyes off of him as he gets ready to sleep, resting against the pillows he got out of the trunk. Finally she curls up in the front seat, heaves a sigh, and goes still. He knows the feeling.

Luke closes his eyes, but can't sleep, huddled under two thin blankets. Maybe none of this is happening. It's a ridiculous thought, but it's better than the ones that involve him driving halfway across the country just to show up on a stranger's doorstep and make him hurt. The sound of Dean's voice, telling him to leave - shifting from a demand to a plea - still plays in his mind, and he squeezes his eyes shut tighter, trying to forget about it and sleep.

He doesn't know if he'll be going back. Doesn't think he can stand seeing that look on Dean's face again, like all the shit he didn't want to remember was coming back to him all at once, and from what Luke can tell, it probably was. He hates being the one to cause that kind of pain. Even though he's been doing a lot of that lately.

He thinks about calling Alex and apologizing, saying it was just some crazy thing that he couldn't get out of his head, that he's going to get back on his meds and go back to work and -

But Alex doesn't have a phone.

He falls asleep, but it's a fitful sleep, interrupted by the cold and the dreams he has. Shivering, he checks on Remy, checks that the doors are locked, checks that his keys are still in his pocket where he left them. Lies back down again and closes his eyes.

* * *

_Skin sliding against skin and the fear is slowly driven out of his mind, replaced by a haze that makes his head drop down onto the pillow as Dean's hands leave trails of intense heat all over his body, the pinprick-spark sensations making him shiver, raising goosebumps. He can't get enough air, or enough contact. Dean's name is on his lips, along with a thousand other things, and he doesn't know what he is saying, if anything. When Dean's lips meet his again, barely touching so that he has to raise his head to really kiss him, he doesn't know if he can take it anymore. "Dean, I ..." He has only a passing familiarity with orgasm, and it's an illicit one at that, as the experiences Dean had - every time he touched himself in the morning, every woman he bedded with - had filtered into his consciousness, completely unsolicited and completely enthralling, so that he couldn't look away even though the guilt was immense._

_"Ssh. It's okay, baby, I got you," Dean is saying, murmuring against his lips, and he shivers again at that. "Cas. Just let go."_

* * *

The last time Luke wakes up, the sunrise is lightening the sky. He checks the clock on his cell phone: a little before seven o'clock. He doesn't bother lying back down, even though he is still exhausted. He is flushed with arousal, his skin heated and his breath shaky, and he realizes that these memories and dreams will never go away, and the only thing he can think to do is try to talk to Dean again.

* * *

If he were twenty years younger, he'd be jacking off right now. A dream like that, no way he'd be able to get his head on straight without getting off.

As it is, he gets out of bed to answer the door.

"Dean," Luke says as Dean opens the door.

"You're back."

"You told me to - "

"Yeah, I know." He moves aside to let Luke into the house, but Luke doesn't move, just stands on the bottom step with his hands shoved in the pockets of his hooded sweatshirt, shivering. "Look, just come in."

"No. I came by to apologize."

"What?"

"I'm sorry. That I came here. It's just . . . inappropriate." The look in Luke's eyes, raw and almost pleading, makes Dean have to turn away.

"So that's it?"

It takes a moment for Luke to reply, "I guess." He sighs and adds, "It just wasn't fair. To shift all my baggage onto you."

"And I'm supposed to just pretend this never happened?"

Now it's Luke's turn to look away. "I don't know."

"Why did you come here? Just give me an answer. And don't think I don't know crazy, 'cause I do. Chances are whatever you've got to say isn't exactly the most outlandish thing I've ever heard."

"I've been dreaming about you."

"Uh-huh."

"And it felt like . . . I was _remembering_ you. We talked about falling once, in one of the dreams. I guess I figured I was dealing with some past life stuff. I thought maybe . . . maybe if I saw you and talked to you I'd remember."

"And how'd that work out for you?"

Luke looks back up at him and says, "I didn't. Remember. All I got was more dreams. It's my problem, not yours. I'm done bothering you."

"So what're you gonna do now?"

"Go back home. I can't think of anything else to do. Anywhere else I've got to go."

As he says it, he moves up the few more steps, slowly, and stands close to Dean, looking into his eyes. And Dean wants to move away, wants some space between them, but he finds he can't move, can't look away.

* * *

_Any dream is a welcome relief from the memories he relives again and again most nights. It's just that what he can ignore during the day isn't so easy to ignore at night, when there's nothing else to focus on, no music or television to turn up to distract him from the thoughts he really shouldn't be having. Thoughts that creep when the sky is just that shade of blue or when he sees birds in flight and those are so not things he wants to associate with the hard-on he's got now._

_He groans and flops back uselessly on his bed, frustration tempering arousal. The lights are still flickering outside, throwing shadows all over the walls, casting him intermittently in red and blue and this is so **wrong**. This kind of wrong that makes him feel dirty, like the grungy, oil-slicked pavement outside this motel room, causing accidents and pain and desperation almost just by existing. Doesn't come clean even when it's rained for days._

_He wants to make the angel come apart under his hands. Wants to fuck him into a mattress and hear the moment his voice breaks._

_It's not like Castiel is **pure**, exactly, but he's probably about as **clean** as it gets. Especially when Dean compares the angel to the dark and twisted and splintered parts of himself. **Anything** can look clean in a certain light. At least Castiel has justification for the things he does. Sort of. Dean? No. No justification. Just desire._

_When you mix clean with dirty, dirty doesn't get cleaner. Clean just gets dirtier._

_Days later, Castiel is saying, "This is . . . inappropriate." He is still standing at the foot of the bed, a few feet away from Dean. He could close the distance between them. He could - _

_Castiel comes closer, and Dean draws in a sharp breath. "What the hell," he says. "Don't tell me you can read my mind, please."_

_"No. Not exactly. But I can perceive strong emotions sometimes. Anger stings. Joy revives. Desire . . . burns. Almost painfully." He turns away. "I can't be with you constantly, but this is one way to stay in contact with you while I am occupied with other things." Looking back over at Dean, he adds, "I regret doing it. There must have been a better way."_

_He's been broadcasting this practically every day. What the hell must that have been doing to Castiel? **Shit.**_

_And now they're so close, and it's back again. Desire. He wonders if Castiel's looking again, if it's burning him. "Cas. I'm sorry." When Castiel turns back toward him, his face is beginning to flush, his breath coming in quick, short bursts, and Dean recognizes the heat rising in his own face, his hands shaking as he reaches forward, haltingly, stopping short. Doubt. Fear._

_"Dean. This is . . ." He can't seem to continue, but Dean can complete that sentence a thousand ways, all equally damning. **Inappropriate. Wrong. Sin. Clean getting dirty.**_

_Dean steps forward, taking Castiel's face in his hands, kissing him. There's no tenderness here, Dean's lips and tongue moving against Castiel's, mouths open, Castiel receiving, opening to him in a way that makes Dean very conscious of what he's doing. Inflicting. Damage._

* * *

When Luke steps forward and puts his lips to Dean's, it feels like a goodbye.

Sure enough, a moment later, Luke is moving away, head down, hands still in his pockets. Dean is saying, "Wait," before his brain has really caught up to what's happening. To hell with it. Even if this isn't Castiel he's looking at - and it's not, no fucking way - there's something that's keeping him from just pushing the kid away. He grabs Luke's wrist, pulls him back.

That's all it takes. Luke's mouth is on his again, and their hands clench in fabric, tighten around biceps. Luke is licking into his mouth, and Dean takes his bottom lip between his teeth, and the rough sigh he draws from Luke sends a shiver down his spine. Their hips grind together and Luke grips at Dean's back as Dean dips his head down, traces the line of Luke's collarbone with his tongue, up to his earlobe, slow, relishing the hitch in Luke's breath and the long moan that escapes him. He is between Luke and the wall, the frigid air around them like needles on his overheated skin, little white puffs of air whooshing out of his mouth as he struggles to catch his breath.

"Dean," Luke chokes out as he pulls away, his lips full and kiss-bruised. "I ..." His movements are faltering, the look in his eyes far away.

"Ssh. Come inside." Dean's voice is low, almost a growl, desire and need building and feeding each other as he leads Luke into his living room - why bother heading to the bedroom when there's a perfectly good couch right here?

* * *

_The desperation in Dean's movements, in the sounds that fall from his lips, starting low in his chest and reaching his mouth, moans and sighs, is disconcerting. There is a sort of sense memory imprinted on his vessel's mind, and a definite familiarity he can feel radiating from Dean. Familiarity, tinged with guilt and longing._

_That longing is there even while Dean presses him into the motel mattress, little flits of emotion every now and then, suggestive of memories Dean can't help but experience, and the guilt that comes along with them, that comes along with this, tells of his ambivalence about it all, desire evoking guilt evoking desire._

_That ambivalence unnerves him, and he wonders why Dean should do this at all if it only seems to bring him more shame. It is a difficult process, unearthing bits and pieces, artifacts of some burden that he can only guess at._

_The physical pleasure he experiences, amplified by Dean's and underscored by need, is a pale imitation of its analogue in Paradise (**home**, he can't help but think, and he misses it terribly at times even as he fears his eventual return there), but there is some beauty in its simplicity, beauty derived from the swell of affection that sometimes accompanies it, that Dean recalls, that his vessel recalls. Affection that bears creation, bears life, that sustains it._

_He feels he has touched upon something important there, experiencing something he only understood before on a purely intellectual level, as the fervor underlying their movements coalesces, as Dean's hands on him draw something out of him, and its intensity surprises him. By his very nature he measures all things against Paradise and finds this somehow significant even in comparison._

* * *

Luke gasps, a sudden sharp breath that has nothing to do with what he's doing to Dean. He stops, his head falling forward, landing in the hollow of Dean's neck. Dean makes a choked sort of noise, laughs a little. "Hey," he says, "take a breath. Easy, baby." Luke hears it but it sounds like he's miles away or maybe like he's underwater and Dean is just above the surface, the sound of Dean's voice muffled by memories slamming roughly into his consciousness, everything clicking into place so that he can't move, can't respond and tell Dean _he remembers Castiel my name was Castiel and I've found you_, can only shudder, barely able to draw in shaky breath after shaky breath, limp and shivering in Dean's lap.

Dean says his name after a few moments, his lips against Luke's - Castiel's? Is his name even his own anymore? - temple, and he says, "Hey. Shit, are you okay?" Luke's arms are still around Dean, who somehow manages to get him so that he's lying down, tries to get him to lie on his back but Luke immediately curls up on his side, facing away from Dean, trying to just recede into the upholstery.

He doesn't know how long he's lying there before he hears Dean say his name again, but he is finally able to gasp out, "Castiel."

A beat passes, and Dean says, "What?"

"My name. Was Castiel."

And Dean makes a broken noise, and Luke feels him just _crumple_ upon hearing it. But there's nothing to do now but continue, because once he's started he doesn't want to stop, wants to make this - this and thousands of years of an angel's lifetime, god, an _angel_ - make sense.

"I fell and it was worse than dying. The pain. Of falling. Of losing them. And you." With every word it gets harder and harder to speak.

* * *

_Every transgression he'd committed being recounted to him, every detail beginning from the last time he was with Dean, only hours before they'd finally caught him. His wings being torn off of him, slowly, one tiny piece at a time as he heard every word of it and relived every moment along with their narration, every wave of emotion that he'd felt - anger, loss, happiness, **love**, love for anyone but their Father and his brothers and sisters - intertwined with the loss of another piece of what connected him to Dean. Every insubordinate act punished with a torrent of pain that coalesced, reached its coda at the memory of the first flicker of doubt in his mind._

_And then they started over. Took hold of his Grace and as Amitiel prepared to read his sins to him again he felt the bonds holding him begin to loosen, just enough to notice and just enough to count. He felt himself falling as he pulled it out himself, barely catching a glimpse of Balthial, still holding the bonds that had held Castiel, as his home and his brethren faded out of sight for the last time. He wished he could shout an apology to Balthial, let him know that this wasn't at all how he'd meant for things to go._

_On the way down he realized he'd met his end at the moment he'd met Dean._

* * *

Hours later, Luke is still curled into a ball on Dean's couch, the pain in his head and his bones and his _heart_ making him squeeze his eyes shut and clench his teeth, still shaking from sheer terror. The voices are back, just whispers but he thinks he hears his name. Castiel's name.

Dean went outside a long time ago to bring Remy inside - Luke heard the dogs outside barking as he brought her in - and set down some food and water for her. As the sun began to set, he turned on the heat and brought Luke a blanket from a closet in the hallway. Luke can't even feel the temperature change in the room, and just curls further into himself.

He tries to focus on the path his breath takes from his nose to his lungs and back to his nose into the air but he loses track in the face of everything he is still trying to process. Balthial fell too, Luke knows it. Across the country, close to where he did. And now Alex is still waiting for him to come back and somehow Luke needs to tell him. He's in danger. When he thinks of Alex now, the ache is somehow sharper, knowing that when they had talked about past lives they were so close to the truth. Past lives and shared histories. Sacrifices.

Dean is on the floor now, sitting up, his back against Luke's. Luke has heard him start to speak again and again, has been waiting for what he has to say because Luke is at a loss, for what to say and what to _do_, doesn't know if there's anything left either way. To say or to do. He needs Dean to pick up the slack now because as he is now - trembling, trying to shrink into nothing - he's useless.

At some point he drifts off to sleep (although at this point there's no difference between _awake_ and _asleep_ for him, because he is still remembering and hurting even in sleep), starts awake when Dean finally begins talking. "Sam," he says, and Luke feels a flit of relief among everything else. _Sam._ Still alive, still Dean's brother. Still answering his calls, apparently.

And then Dean says, "I need a miracle."

* * *

Somehow Sam appears at Bobby's - well, he guesses it's Dean's now - the next morning. "This is Cas?" he asks doubtfully.

Dean corrects him. "Luke," he says, quietly, barely audible.

"I don't know anymore," he says.

There is a beat of silence, and Dean asks, "What?"

"My name. Luke, Cas. I don't know what it is anymore," he replies.

"How 'bout we stick with Luke, huh?" Dean says.

Luke sits up, the blanket pooling around him on the couch. "Hello, Sam." He looks up and meets Sam's eyes. Feels a distinct sense of relief when he sees the spark of recognition in Sam's face, sees his shoulders relax, the suspicion seemingly gone.

"Are you . . ." Sam starts, but doesn't finish.

"Considering the circumstances, I'm as okay as I'm likely to be," Luke replies. He shifts on the couch, sits cross-legged with his hands in his lap, staring down at them.

"Have you been hearing voices? Angel radio?"

"Sometimes. Not very much, and I can barely hear them. But . . ."

"But what?" Sam asks, and Luke recognizes Sam's attentiveness. Realizes he hasn't changed much and can't get past how insane that is, insane that he _knows_ this man.

"I thought I heard them saying my - Castiel's name." Sam glances over at Dean. "That can't be good."

"You think?" Dean scoffs. "You need some wards, pronto."

"Do you remember the Enochian sigils you used as a ward?"

Luke remembers a lot. Castiel had a long time to experience and remember, and every memory was just as important as all the others. All that's left for Luke is to sift through it all. His face is in his hands, his thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose and his eyes squeezed shut when Sam says, "Luke, if it's too much right now we can try to figure something else out. We're just trying to protect you. If they're talking about you - Castiel," Sam grimaces as he corrects himself, "they may have an idea where you are."

"Yeah," Luke replies. He _knows_. He looks over at Dean, sitting hunched over a desk, pencil in hand, moving across a sheet of paper.

"So if you can't remember we can - " Sam continues, but stops short as Luke stands up, goes over to where Dean is seated at the desk. "Um."

"Look familiar?" Dean asks, nodding down to what he's drawing on the paper, and it does.

"The Enochian sigils. The ones . . . the ones that hid you from the angels," Luke says. "How did you - ?"

"I'm just naturally curious about the stuff engraved in my bones, I guess. It's not the kind of thing you really forget," Dean interrupts him, and Luke reaches down, puts his hand next to Dean's.

"Can I . . ?"

Dean looks up at him, his pencil mid-mark. He looks back down, finishes the character, and gives the pencil to Luke. Sam comes over to watch as Luke finishes the sigils, slowly, his grip still tenuous, the strokes of the pencil uncertain at first, but soon there is a definite rhythm to what he's doing, and as he sets the pencil down on the desk, he looks back at Dean.

"It's right," Dean says, and Sam sighs, picking the paper up off of the desk.

"So it's gonna suck but we need to get you to a tattoo artist, quick."

* * *

The demon protection sigil is on his chest, and the angel protection sigil is on his back. He didn't realize how totally unprepared he was, but as he lay face down on the table Luke grit his teeth and closed his eyes. Focused on his breathing again, trying to feel the tension leaving his muscles.

He kept his eyes closed the whole time, every slow line traced on his back, every bold swoop made on his chest. In a strange way, it kept him grounded the way he couldn't be when he was left alone with nothing to do but think and remember. The hot, slick alcohol sting is still burning. Doesn't leave him wrapped around himself, trying to fade away.

* * *

Luke has apparently figured out how to layer his clothes. Took him long enough, but then again, Dean guesses the kid's had his mind on other things.

He's sitting outside on the front steps, his dog lying next to him, her head resting on his knee. He's absently scratching her ears as he leans against one of the support beams on the porch.

"Hey," he says, taking the few steps to stand next to him, leans against another support beam.

"Hey," Luke replies, glancing over at him, around the hood of his sweatshirt. "I didn't wake you up, did I?"

"No." He sits down, and Remy looks up at him. Sighs and lays her head back down on Luke's knee as he reaches over to pet her. "You takin' care of your ink?"

Luke nods, and says, "It's kind of hard to get at my back, though. I just gave up after a while." He hesitates, looking down at the ground, then adds, "Could you help me?"

"Yeah. Let's go inside."

Luke gives him the tin of aftercare salve. Dean guides him over to the desk. "Sit."

The downside of layering is that there's a lot of layers to take off. Dean watches as Luke unzips his sweatshirt, pulls off the two t-shirts and the tank top underneath it. He's slow, a nervous look on his face, but eventually sits down on the desk. He inhales sharply when Dean begins rubbing the green salve into the tattoo, raised angry lines crisscrossing his back. "It'll get easier in a couple days once it starts to scab. These your first tattoos?"

"Yeah," Luke says. His voice is tense, his shoulders hunched, his hands braced on the desk, elbows locked straight.

"Try to relax," Dean says. "I know it's been a rough few days." Luke nods, and Dean finishes with the salve. After a moment, Luke gets up to put his clothes back on, but Dean stops him. "Hang on." He takes up more of the salve, rubs his hands together, and grips Luke's shoulders, rolling the pads of his thumbs in the tense knots of muscles just at the base of his neck where it meets his shoulders. Luke sighs, his neck rolling forward, his shoulders going slack. "Just relax," Dean says again. "Does it hurt?"

"A little."

"Just breathe in." Luke does, and when Dean presses a little harder, his breath hitches. "Keep breathing. Breathe out." He moves his knuckles along the curves of Luke's shoulders. "You still hearing angel radio?"

"Just whispers, still. But it's there. It - " His breath hitches again as Dean hits another knot.

"Breathe in," he murmurs, "keep breathing."

"It just takes some getting used to, is all. Angel radio." "They still talking about you? Castiel?"

"I haven't heard anything else about him." After a moment he adds, "Me."

Dean pauses. "That's good. Encouraging."

"Yeah." His back arches as Dean runs the balls of his hands down Luke's sides.

"You loosening up?"

"Yeah."

"Good." He moves down to the base of Luke's spine, uses his knuckles, and says, "So. Sam's been doing some research. He thinks he found your Grace."

Dean thinks he sees Luke pale a little at that. "My . . . oh."

"What do you think?"

"What do you mean?" Luke replies, quietly. Dean can feel his muscles tensing up again.

"Relax. Do you want to go look for it?"

"I'd become an angel again," Luke says.

Dean's silent for a moment. "Yeah." He'll let Luke think it over. For as long as he needs to.

Luke picks up his clothes, starts pulling his shirts back on. "Thanks . . . for your help."

"Sure thing." As Luke makes his way to the front door again, Dean adds, "Let me know when you make a decision."

* * *

"Dean?"

Dean looks up from what he's doing, sees an anxious look on Luke's face. "Yeah?"

"I have to go back."

Dean takes a breath, runs his hand through his hair. "Back where? To California?"

"Yeah."

"Alright."

"I think . . . on the way, I'm going to find my Grace."

Dean nods, gets a few beers out of the fridge. "So when are you leaving?" he asks, setting the beers down on the table, the glass ringing hollow against the wood.

As he opens the first one and slides it toward Luke, Luke says, "Tomorrow morning."

He takes a long pull off of his beer. "What'll you do when you get there?"

"I don't know." Luke looks down at the bottle in his hands, idly peels off the label.

"So you're just gonna go alone," Dean says. Luke nods.

"Bad idea," Sam says, standing in the doorway of the kitchen, his hair still damp from the shower. "If they were talking about you the other day there's no way they won't be looking for you. You're hidden from them. The first place they'll go is gonna be anywhere there's a miracle."

"Where's my Grace?"

"In an old strip mine in Tennessee."

Luke sighs and gulps his beer, downs half of it in one pull.

"And after that you're headed back to California," Dean says.

A pause, and then Luke replies, "Yeah."

"Well, alright."

Sam looks between the two of them, and says, "I'll get your directions ready." He takes the beer Dean left for him and walks out of the room.

Dean guesses there's nothing left to say. The only sound between them is the sound of beer bottles on the wooden table, and then the scraping of a chair as Luke gets up to leave. Dean hears the front door open and close.

* * *

It's past two in the morning and Luke wants to be out of here by seven. No use in dragging it out.

But no matter how many times he shuts his eyes there's just no dropping off to sleep. Every time he dozes off, something - a noise inside the house or a dream jolting him awake - wakes him up.

He sees a shadow moving through the room and rolls off of the couch, trying hit the floor silently, but the floorboards creak underneath him. The shadow gasps, and says, "Luke. Jesus, you scared me."

"Oh. Dean." He gets back on the couch, tries to relax. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah. Just getting some water." Dean's voice is thick with sleep, a little raspy.

"Oh."

"What are you still doin' up?"

"I couldn't sleep," Luke replies.

"If you're leaving in the morning - "

"I know. I'm exhausted, I just ..." Luke trails off, and the faucet in the kitchen runs for a moment, shuts off. He looks up at the sound of a chair scraping on the floor, sees Dean sitting at the table, silhouetted in the light coming through the window. He just watches for a moment, sure that Dean can see him staring. He reaches into his bag to get the tattoo salve, walks over to where Dean is sitting. Stands right behind him and opens the salve, rubbing some into his hands.

"What are you doing?" Dean says.

"Returning the favor." He sets his hands on Dean's neck but Dean recoils, moving away from him.

"Don't."

"Why?"

"You can't just tell me you're leaving in the morning and act like everything's the same here."

Luke knows, but he can still _try_. He hates that he came here, hates that he dangled Castiel in front of Dean only to snatch him away, but how does Luke become that? He feels like there's another person here in the room with them, like the part of him that's Castiel is something completely outside of himself. Detached.

"It's the only thing I know to do, Dean. I've got some loose ends I have to tie up in California, my entire apartment's in the back of my car and I've got nothing here." Luke hears Remy whine in her sleep in the living room, curled up at the end of the couch.

"Nothing, huh." Dean says it like there's a bitter taste in his mouth.

"Dean. I'm sorry."

"Well, that helps. G'night," he says, standing up to leave.

"Dean." Luke grabs Dean's wrist, pulls him back. They're so close now, and Luke can hear Dean's breathing pick up. He could close the distance between them.

He does. Kisses Dean again and it feels right, _he _feels right, doesn't feel splintered and detached like he did just a few moments ago. Luke leads him over to the couch, still warm with his body heat, and pulls him down.

His eyes finally become heavy with sleep, and when he wakes up a few hours later, the sun rising, he sees that Dean has fallen asleep too, propped against him. He doesn't move until he hears Sam moving around in the next room, then hastily wakes Dean and whispers, "Wake up." Dean jolts awake and sits up, squinting as his eyes adjust to the morning light.

"You better start gettin' ready," Dean tells him, glancing at the clock on the opposite wall.

"Yeah," Luke replies. "Will you come with me?"

* * *

They say goodbye to Sam, who drives off just before they do.

Somewhere in Illinois, Dean asks, "So what kinda loose ends you got in California?"

"An ex. I think he may have fallen too."

"You're kidding."

Luke shakes his head.

"Shit," Dean says.

"I have to make sure he's safe."

Dean nods, and presses down harder on the accelerator.

* * *

"This used to be a strip mine," Luke says, quietly.

"Yeah," Dean replies, his voice just barely above a whisper. They are looking into a deep, clear lake, so clear they can see fish swimming, dancing around each other. Dean is worried, trying to figure out just how the hell they're going to find Luke's Grace when there's dozens of feet of water between it and them. "Your Grace is probably somewhere in there."

"Yeah," Luke replies.

"So what are you thinking?"

Luke considers it. He feels like something is pulling him toward it, like a magnetic field. Weak where he's standing but he's sure if he got any closer it would pull him in completely. That's ridiculous, of course. He could go in to look for it, but without some scuba gear and a lot of time it's going to be pretty difficult.

"Forget about it," he says.

"Whoa, whoa. Are you kidding?"

"No," Luke says.

"What the hell?"

"Do you have any ideas on how we're going to find it down there?" Luke points down into the water, looks at the point where it becomes darker and darker until it's just that deep blue-black.

Dean sighs, grits his teeth. "No."

"Maybe one day I'll be able to find it. Right now I just . . . I have to find Alex and warn him. I have to - " He stops, abrupt, afraid to say the words that are threatening to fall from his lips.

"What?"

Luke is silent for a moment, and decides to just say it. "I wanted to spend some time with you." Dean raises his eyebrows, as if to say, _"Yeah. And?"_ "And," Luke continues, "I wanted it to spend it as a human."

"Oh." When he says it, it just _hits_ Dean, hard, and he hates the prickling behind his eyes so he blinks it away, looks down into the water again.

And there's nothing left to say again, at least not anything that either of them knows how to say, or would be comfortable saying even if they had the words. They stand still, the fish swim. They breathe.

"Do you like to swim?" Luke says, and unzips his sweatshirt, takes off his sneakers. Before he has time to really think about it - to find all the reasons why he shouldn't - he runs toward the edge and jumps, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, feeling the closest thing to flying that he may ever feel again. And smiles.


End file.
